IBM's Lame Response to SharePoint; Cloud Services for Collaboration; Making Consumers More Like Enterprisers

Top News StoriesSharePoint 2013 and IBM's Lame Response (CMSWire)SharePoint was originally developed as a response, albeit a very weak one, to IBM’s Websphere software, which quickly became the leading enterprise portal solution. However, the mighty Microsoft, never one to rest on its laurels, decided to chase the leader by pouring billions of dollars into SharePoint and has arguably displaced Websphere as the category leader, while IBM has allowed Websphere Portal to plod along with comparably little fanfare, or investment.

Office 2013/365 May be Microsoft's Most Pervasive Software Package Yet (NetworkWorld)With the help of Kurt DelBene, president of Microsoft's Office Division, CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled Office 2013 and the latest iterations of Office 365 at a press conference in San Francisco yesterday. Unsurprisingly, the next versions of Office have taken on the same flavor as Windows 8, with streamlined, uncluttered interfaces and deep integration with the cloud and social media. Interface tweaks for, and synergies with, social media, smartphones and tablets abound.

Top Cloud Services for Collaboration (PCWorld)Emailing documents back and forth or using an FTP server to collaborate on projects is slow and cumbersome. Collaborating in the cloud is fast and easy. Once you’ve tried it, you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it.

Microsoft Office Lifestyle: Making Consumers More Like Enterprisers (Ars Technica)At the Office 2013 event in San Francisco on July 16, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer tried to make the case that Office isn't just about work—it's a lifestyle brand. Saying, "My entire life is on Office 15 and Windows 8," Ballmer played up the consumer-focused nature of Office, and its place in Microsoft's effort to make work more like personal time and personal time more...like work.

Is Windows 8 a Catastrophe or a Success? (ZDNet)By now, you've seen the headlines on ZDNet and other places about Valve Software's co-founder Gabe Newell stating that, "a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space.” I'm sure Ballmer and the boys over at Microsoft paused their glass-clicking just long enough to laugh at that statement. So, to let you know, in case you can't figure it out for yourself, Windows 8 is, in fact, so not a catastrophe for anyone except for those who don't understand it. Windows 8 is basically, in my humble opinion, Windows 7 R2 with a new interface dubbed 'Metro.' Admittedly, I wasn't a big fan of '8' in the beginning. I've changed my mind--in spite of what some fanboys think--without a penny coming to my bank account from Microsoft.

A Closer Look at Windows 8's Browser: Internet Explorer 10 (PCMagazine)Windows 8's browser, Internet Explorer 10, leads a double life. You can run it in Metro, you can run it in the traditional Windows desktop view. Underneath, however, both use the same rendering engine. This engine has been considerably improved, in both speed and support for new Web technologies such as HTML5 and CSS3. Maybe even more significantly, IE10 isn't just the browser for Windows 8, it actually becomes the underlying engine that powers Metro style applications that use HTML5 and JavaScript. When you realize that, it becomes clear that Internet Explorer 10 is a crucial piece of the Windows 8 puzzle.

Microsoft: Surface Tablet to Ship October 26 Alongside Windows 8 (WindowsITPro)In a filing with the US Security and Exchange Commission, Microsoft quietly admitted something it has been silent about with the public: Yes, the first Surface tablets will ship to customers on October 26, the same day that Windows 8 arrives. "The next version of our operating system, Windows 8, will be generally available on October 26, 2012,” the filing reads. “At that time, we will begin selling the Surface, a series of Microsoft-designed and manufactured hardware devices.”

Around the BlogosphereOffice as a Service (Arpan Shah's Blog)One of my personal favorite new investment areas of the new Office release is how the Office client has transformed to a service. This is game changing and marries the beautiful, rich value of a rich client with the deployment ease of a browser app. Many people in today’s world carry multiple devices that have compute power, local storage and a unique form factor. Users shouldn’t have to use a browser experience as the lowest common denominator across all their devices when they can enjoy rich apps that deliver optimized experiences – good examples of apps that do this today are Skype, Netflix and SkyDrive. John Jendrezak has written a nice blog post on the Office Next blog on this topic that I recommend checking out @ http://blogs.office.com/b/office-next/archive/2012/07/17/office-and-the-cloud.aspx. This blog post is my personal view on the value Office as a service delivers to an end user.

SharePoint Profiles, Privacy, and Search (Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog)Profile: You’re at the company meeting with thousands of fellow co-workers, and you meet Jim, who works on a partner team on the other side of the country. Besides what he looks like, you don’t know anything about him. You don’t know what projects he’s worked on, his expertise, or who you both know in common. Fortunately, you and Jim both have SharePoint profiles, so you can learn more about Jim, follow him, and stay connected even after the company meeting has ended.

Multi Tenancy with SharePoint 2013 Preview: What’s New and Changed (harbar.net)SharePoint 2013 Preview introduces a number of new elements and additional considerations for multi tenancy deployments. This article is intended as a companion to my Rational Guide to Multi Tenancy with SharePoint 2010 article series and will cover what’s new and changed in this release with respect to configuration and functionality. It is assumed you are familiar with the material in the article series. Please note that this article applies to the SharePoint 2013 Preview release. Things are likely to change between now and the final release of SharePoint 2013. I will update this article shortly after RTM.

The Forgotten SharePoint 2013 Prerequisites (Todd Klindt's SharePoint Admin Blog)Lately, we’ve all been installing SharePoint 2013 like it’s our job. I guess for some of us it actually might be. As with SharePoint 2010, Microsoft has done a great job giving us a load of training on SharePoint 2013, and it’s not even out yet! Since it’s beta software, there are some rough edges. One of them involves the Prerequisite installer. The Prereq installer hasn’t changed much since SharePoint 2010. You still need to run it before you can install SharePoint 2013. It still grabs the newest, bestest versions of the files SharePoint 2013 needs. You can still run it on a machine without Internet access by passing the local location of the files. It also misses a patch or two.

Around Bamboo NationSharePoint 2013 Cookbook: Prepare Your Environment to Create Apps for the SharePoint 2013 Preview with Visual Studio 2012 RC Preview (SharePoint 2013)In our SharePoint 2013 blog, we'll be delivering content for all manner of SharePoint disciplines, so for this post we're going to jump over to the developer world. First, we should clarify a new term that's been introduced to the ecosystem in SharePoint 2013: Apps. Apps are, well ... everything. A list is an App, a Web Part is an App, and Sandbox Solutions are Apps. Apps now introduce a new deployment architecture which allows you to host assemblies and resource files in the Cloud, on-premises, or within a hybrid of the two, creating a very powerful wealth of options for SharePoint solution developers.

Free eBook: Deployment Guide for SharePoint 2013 Preview (SharePoint 2013)Hello early adopters! A little over a week ago, Microsoft released the free eBook "Deployment Guide for SharePoint 2013 Preview", a comprehensive, 390 page guide into planning, installing and configuring SharePoint 2013. It comes in various formats for your viewing pleasure including .doc, .epub, .mobi and .pdf

SharePoint Job Listings*SharePoint--.NET Developer - Philadelphia, PAThe selected candidate will be responsible for the design, development and implementation of mission critical solutions for enterprise business applications and business intelligence solutions inclusive of Microsoft's SharePoint, Microsoft's Reporting Services, Microsoft SQL and related tools. Developing Web parts and modifying content on Microsoft's SharePoint portal as required by business units.

SharePoint Consultant - Sylmar, CAFinancial Services Client is in need of a consultant that can get a SharePoint environment configured and running for use as a communications and collaboration tool for our Marketing and Sales team. We have a pilot environment running now but no bandwidth to get it beyond its small internal IT pilot. Looking for someone that can build out our SharePoint environment from the ground up, initially for Sales and Marketing group, and also implement it for IT.

Microsoft UpdatesNew SharePoint Technical Content (SharePoint IT Pro Blog)These are indeed exciting times for the Microsoft Office Division as a whole, and definitely for those of us who work on the technical content. First off, we hope you like the refreshed look and feel of this blog. Look for more design evolutions as time goes on, and of course, lots of SharePoint IT pro content! Check out the TechNet home page and feature package that launched today. They cover top-level IT professional content for new Office, Office 365, SharePoint, Exchange, Lync, and Project and even include an Editor’s note by yours truly.

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About Chris Dooley

As Marketing Manager for Bamboo Solutions, Chris Dooley is responsible for overseeing all marketing efforts made towards identifying, creating, and evaluating strategies to promote the services and products offered by the company. He brings more than eight years of marketing experience to his position, with a strong focus on social media marketing stemming from his time of employment with America Online prior to Bamboo Solutions. During his time with AOL as a Senior Program Manager, Chris was responsible for creating the advertising processes for AOL Messaging and Social Media and co- founded AOL’s ComicsAlliance. In his role as Marketing Manager for Bamboo Solutions, he continues to carry out his extensive knowledge of social media marketing by establishing the need for the company’s products and services worldwide through emphasizing and initiating global marketing efforts. Chris studied Programming at Georgia Perimeter College.